Five Abandoned Churches & A Cellar Full of Skulls

There’s something about abandoned buildings that resonates strangely with the human spirit: the homes lost, the stories forgotten. Watching the decay of our built structures – things designed to outlast us – sends a powerful message about how all things must one day return to the earth. Nothing lasts forever. How interesting it is then, to contemplate the decline of our monuments to the eternal: the powerful symbolism offered by the sight of abandoned churches.

From time to time in my travels, I’ve come across the derelict remains of religious buildings; some of them boarded and fenced off in city centres, others left to rot in fields or forests. I felt it was about time I shared a few, and so here are five of the most memorable abandoned churches that I’ve had the opportunity to explore.

Abandoned Churches and Bell Tower, Bulgaria

I came across this place a year ago, nestled amongst bushes and tumbled stone walls, in the middle of a remote Balkan village.

The village was much like many others in the region; half a dozen houses clustered around a potholed road, and half of those properties most likely uninhabited. Over the past couple of decades Bulgaria has seen radical depopulation in its more rural settlements, as young people typically move to the cities – or now, increasingly to other EU nations – in search of work. As a result, many of Bulgaria’s more remote villages have been starved of life and vitality.

A cluster of buildings sat back from the road; the creepers and brambles already taking hold of the old stones, pulling them down in a deadly stranglehold. It was a war memorial in the graveyard that first caught my eye – but I followed it through to the derelict structures behind. Here I was greeted by the faded symbols of the Bulgarian Orthodox church; and stepping through an arched double doorway, into what I realised was the remains of one of two abandoned churches, for just a moment I was able to imagine the building whole.

At a guess, I’d say the church had been built sometime in the early 19th century. It wasn’t until 1878 that Bulgaria finally achieved independence from Ottoman rule, before which these people were strictly forbidden from building churches that rose taller than the mosques of their occupiers. As a result, Bulgarian Orthodox churches built before that were typically dug deep into the ground, to form semi-subterranean spaces of worship that wouldn’t offend their Muslim overlords.

This building, approached by a series of three stone steps descending into a shallow, one-storey church, seemed to fit the pattern.

There were several buildings clustered together, two separate abandoned churches, plus a bell tower. The latter was built in a more ornate style and topped with a proud cross, which would certainly have been raised post-liberation – such a blatant advert of Christianity would never have met with Ottoman approval.

The sun was setting by the time I finished looking around both the abandoned churches. I glanced up at the stone tower as I crossed the graveyard, and at that moment I caught the reflection of sun beams glinting dully on the brass body of a bell.

Immediately, I knew I wanted to climb the tower.

The bell tower wasn’t tall, perhaps a little over four floors high. What made the climb difficult however, was the state of the wooden staircase. Some steps were missing, others splintered, grown over with moss, while just a few seemed to promise the illusion of stability.

I took the climb at a painfully slow rate. The structure creaked and groaned in protest, as I crawled up the rotten corkscrew.

At last, however, I made it to the top. Coming round one final corner of the warped and weathered staircase I met a square of blue above – where day’s last light was spilling in through windows in the stone to illuminate the bell ringer’s platform.

I caught my breath and looked out at the view – the sleepy hamlet, the lake beyond, the mountains disappearing into mist. In all the years this church and tower had suffered the onslaught of the elements, wood and stone giving way to the inevitable pull of natural decay, the view itself had likely never changed. Now that I was here, I couldn’t resist but ring the bell. It tolled a deep and dissonant sound that echoed out across the landscape… but by now there was hardly anyone left to hear it.

Christ the Saviour Cathedral, Kosovo

In November last year I took a trip to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. There are plenty of abandoned churches in Kosovo, due to the nature of the religiously-charged conflict that occurred there in the 1990s. One of the most memorable sites I explored that week however, was an unfinished cathedral: located in a park just off George Bush Boulevard.

Construction began on the ‘Christ the Saviour Cathedral’ back in 1995, when it was intended as a place of worship for Pristina’s Serbian Orthodox population. That all changed however, with the outbreak of the Kosovo War in February 1998. The project was stalled as war ravaged the country, Albanians pitted against Serbs in a battle for independence. The following years would see attempted ethnic cleansing, bombing raids and eventual UN intervention… and by the time the Republic of Kosovo declared its independence in February 2008, the unfinished Serbian cathedral in its capital had become an uncomfortable reminder of past conflicts.

Built on the grounds of Pristina University, the Christ the Saviour Cathedral remains a brickwork shell to this day. It isn’t guarded, and the construction team never got as far as giving the building doors which might be locked to keep out trespassers; and so I sauntered in freely, to explore the vast brickwork arches and domes of a cathedral that never was.

While some Kosovo Albanians have called for the complete demolition of the building – branding it a symbol of the regime of Slobodan Milošević – there are others here who like it just the way it is. Speaking to an Albanian Muslim friend just a few days later, I was told that there are some in Pristina (and particularly amongst the younger generation) who consider such abandoned churches a kind of trophy;

“Every time I look at this ruin, it reminds me of our victory against the Serbs,” my friend told me over burek and coffee.

Inside the cathedral I caught the scent of something foul, and turning a corner, I found that the altar space had recently been used as a public toilet. Whether this too carried a political message – or was simply the work of someone who’d been caught short in the park – I’d never know.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, UK

I first spotted this building by daylight, its broken prow rearing up over the graveyard wall. Even from a distance, the extreme decay was clear to see.

Named the ‘Church of the Immaculate Conception,’ this ruined temple stands in a town with a population of some 30,000 people. Built as a Catholic church and opened in 1855, the site is a Grade Two listed building – designed, according to some, by the renowned Victorian architect Augustus Pugin (responsible for the interior design of the Palace of Westminster), though researchers suggest a more likely author was Gideon Boyce of Tiverton.

The building saw worship for over a century, but in 1980 the Church of the Immaculate Conception closed its doors – the timbers of the roof were rotting, the stonework flaking, and since then it has been left to deteriorate. There’s an ongoing battle between the council, who want to level the church, and campaigners who want it preserved. Thirty years on though, nothing has changed and the building stands now as one of several abandoned churches in the town.

I returned to the church under the cover of night, climbing the perimeter wall before wading through a weed infested graveyard up to the stone steps leading to the entrance. Speaking with people locally, I had heard some say the building was haunted – cursed, according to one source. I suppose it’s inevitable that abandoned churches would be potent wells for superstition.

Try as I might though, gaining entry to the building was just not possible; at least, not without causing damage to the wooden barricades, something I was not prepared to do. The only clear access I could spot was an unboarded window, a dark slot on the rounded wall at the back end of the church – and at a height of some 15 feet above the ground.

In the end I left the site unsuccessful, but I expect I’ll be back some day… and next time I come I’m bringing ropes.

St. Augustine’s Church, UK

The next on this list is another of Britain’s abandoned churches: and another chance encounter. I passed it one day quite by accident, the building already halfway demolished. Again, I waited until dark… and in the meantime, did a little research on the history of the place.

St. Augustine’s, a modern CoE church, was built in 1971-2 and for a time it served as a community centre – hosting, in addition to church services, a range of dance classes, fetes, jumble sales, scouting groups and other community events.

The problem was, this church just wasn’t built very well. By 1985, only 14 years into the building’s life, the 80-foot tower was deemed unsafe and had to be dismantled. It was a bad omen, and in April 2000 it was first proposed that the rest of the site should follow in being demolished. It was in 2007 that St Augustine’s finally closed its doors, and the congregation was relocated to the nearby primary school for their weekly services.

While researching the church I found it once featured a rather unique statue of the Risen Christ; the image on the left here comes from an article posted to the BBC website back in June 2013. It seems there had been a campaign to find a new home for the figure, after it was deemed too large for the community’s new place of worship.

The work of one Ernest Pascoe, this modern likeness rendered in fibre glass measured a height of 10 foot (5 feet wide across His outspread arms), and had hung over the art deco cross above the altar. By the time of my visit, Christ was long gone – to a better home, I hope – while the cross itself was beginning to disappear, cracking and falling from the wall one fragment of plaster at a time.

Gaining access to the church was easy enough, by scaling a fence at the back of the demolition site then crossing a yard filled with diggers, trucks and mounds of rubble – to climb at last over a pile of broken wooden furniture that blocked a doorway to the hall.

The place was a wreck filled with mounds of broken wood, where stripped cables lay in ribbons across the floor. Each time a car passed outside, the headlights would catch in stained glass windows to throw warm beams of green and red and orange around the hall.

Around the walls, was painted a quote attributed to St. Teresa of Avila.

“Christ has no body on Earth now but yours:
No hands but yours:
Yours are the eyes through which He is to look with compassion on the world:
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good:
And Yours the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

Usually I avoid being too specific with the locations I explore, but there’s little harm in it here. I was back in Bristol again this year, and decided to check up on the Church of St. Augustine in Whitchurch – but this time the church has vanished altogether, to be replaced now by a cluster of new homes, clean, red bricks rising up over the barrier that still surrounds the building site.

Abandoned Orthodox Church, Romania

Perhaps the most beautiful of these five abandoned churches, this Romanian Orthodox church was also the most severely dilapidated.

The church lies on the edge of a tiny village, surrounded by open fields and roughly an hour’s drive from Bucharest. I never would have found the remote location on my own, but rather I made the trip with my Romanian friend Ovidiu, and co-conspirator Nate (the man from Yomadic).

Ducking beneath a lintel of jagged, severed bricks, we stepped into the church through a breach in one wall; a breach created after one large section of the building had torn away altogether, to crumble into the long grass.

Immediately I was struck by the simplistic beauty of the place. Frescoed walls and pillars in warm shades of orange, delicate arches and the most exquisite murals painted in blue, gold and red.

Unlike the previous building, which had been pulled apart by power tools and gas-fuelled vehicles of destruction, the atmosphere here was altogether different. There was a sense of serenity about the decay, as green growth sprouted out of old bricks… and vines reached in through windows to steal the minerals back from the very walls themselves.

The death of this church was a beautiful thing, a painless passing wrapped in the arms of nature.

Though the space inside was small, we spent a good long while exploring it – most of that time poring over faded frescos, admiring the painstaking detail in every scene. At one point we even climbed up onto the walls themselves… moving slowly, cautious not to dislodge the stones.

From the broken end of the nave we looked down on the altar from above, our view level with the bell tower that somehow, against all odds, stood tall and square above the ruin even now.

Outside the church, the graveyard touched a village square where children chased chickens and three old women in shawls sat watching from a wooden bench; and on the border, stood a gatehouse.

Like the church, this building too had seen better days – but for now at least, it managed to maintain some structural integrity. I decided to climb it.

Stood beneath the stone archway, I ran my hand through the space where once a staircase would have been – wet chips of rotten wood now hanging in heavy cobwebs, while the chewed-off ends of steps still jutted out of slots at regular intervals. There was a square hatch above, leading to the balcony – but 10 feet up without a ladder, I wasn’t going to get there on my own.

Using Ovidiu as a human climbing frame, I managed to get a hold on the ledge above… before pulling myself up and over the lip, rolling into a square grey chamber adjacent to the central tower.

The space inside the upper portion of the gatehouse had, apparently, long since been taken over by the pigeons. Moving through the mounds of muck and feathers, I crossed to where a wooden hatch opened onto the central tower. Above me, sunlight streamed in through a wide rent in the tin roof.

The main tower of the building had lost its floor – where once the boards had been, now only a couple of wooden planks extended from one end to the next, a delicate balancing act above a 10-foot drop.

I put my best foot forward, placing it on the wooden beam with the hope of crossing, and making it out onto the balcony beyond. It wasn’t to be, however; the moment I put weight on the wood I felt it shift beneath me, the surface crumbling to a grit with the texture and consistency of coffee grounds. I took one last look at that door opening out onto the balcony, then looked down again to the powdery mess my foot had made of the walkway.

No, I thought, not worth it.

Before we left, the churchyard had one more surprise in store for us.

Beneath a nearby tree there sat a heavy stone sarcophagus, its lid carved with ornate script and a sculpted wreath. At each corner, the tomb was supported on stones fashioned into the shape of feet.

I was just admiring the letters carved into the tomb, when I spotted a square hole down in the earth beside the sarcophagus. A series of slab-like steps descended beneath the graveyard, into a deep, dark chamber filled with stones and rubble. The space wasn’t large, and felt all the more cramped for the piles of broken things which had been cast down from the opening above. There were cracked tombstones, pieces of pillar, even shards of splintered wood; presumably from coffins. In all this time thinking about abandoned churches, I had never once considered what became of their crypts: as entrances collapsed, and the dead were sealed below ground in forgotten caves. In time, this one too would likely be forgotten.

And after that we bid the church farewell. In one sense it was tragic to see such art left out to rot, and I wondered why no effort had been made to preserve it. The more time I spent there however, the more I experienced the feeling that everything was exactly as it should be. All beauty must fade, and I was simply grateful for the opportunity to admire the church before it was swallowed back into the earth.

Monastery Crypt, Bulgaria

After five derelict and abandoned churches, this last location might seem out of place; it appeared to be still in use, while the church to which it belonged was part of a larger monastery complex nestled beneath a cliff in the mountains of Bulgaria.

Stepping around the corner of a chapel, we followed the graveyard path that wound around and down; a flight of stones steps descending to the cellar door. I tried the handle and though the door was stubborn to open – the wood swollen from the rain – found it had been left unlocked.

Inside the dim chamber beyond, a number of wooden boxes had been stacked in clumsy piles, a muddle of mismatched chests and caskets. “костилница,” read lettering on the wall: “Ossuary.”

Many of the boxes were labelled with names, presumably corresponding to the bones that lay inside. I wondered where these bones were headed; or if these wooden boxes were indeed the final resting place of monks, priests, or whoever else this may have been in life.

Not all these holy bones were hidden though, and on a recessed shelf at the back of the crypt were arranged a series of human skulls. The bones were clean, if a little dusty – with names and dates painted across each skull in delicate brushstrokes.

The effect was strangely comforting; a repurposing of death, skulls used in place of headstones.

It troubled me, however, to see the bones left open to the air… the skulls beginning to disintegrate, while stacked boxes slowly collapsed under the weight of those above. Abandoned churches are thought-provoking enough, but abandoned bones are a more moving sight altogether.

Perhaps, though, such desire for preservation is itself an unnatural urge – maybe it’s healthier to accept the passing of time, and to embrace the inevitable decay that comes with it. These skulls seemed to serve the purpose of memento mori in every sense: both a reminder that all things must end, and also an admission that such processes can yet be beautiful.

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Hi just to let you know that St Augustine’s Bristol now has a brand new building, although it is less obvious than the previous building it is there hidden amongst the new houses. Pop in if you’re passing but this time you are welcome to visit by the front door.

Thank you so much for the comment, Helen! I’m glad to hear the new building is complete, and I hope you’re settling in well – I will absolutely take you up on that invitation, the next time I’m in Bristol!

I’ve been to the one in Pristina, but I wish I’d known about the UK and Romanian ones. That first UK church looks amazing! Too bad you didn’t get to go inside. I’m going back to the UK next year though, going to start compiling myself a shortlist!

I think there are quite a few abandoned churches around the UK. These two were just chance finds, really – in fact, the only site here I knew about in advance of my visit was the Pristina church. What did you think of that one? It’s a bit bare, but the history around it felt pretty poignant to me.

Thank you, Álvaro! To tell the truth, I don’t usually carry much with me – I have a good pair of hiking boots, and some tough gloves can be helpful when climbing. Apart from that though, my bag is mostly full of camera gear. Tripod, torches, spare batteries, etc.